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West German State Names Jew As Member of Newly Formed Government

December 13, 1966
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Dr. Joseph Neuberger, a Jew who returned from Israel to West Germany, was named Minister of Justice in the newly formed Social Democratic government of the West German state of North Rhine — Westphalia.

Heinrich Albertz, a former Protestant clergyman who was jailed by the Nazis for six months during the war for preaching a sermon deemed by the Nazis as “hostile to the state,” is sure to become West Berlin’s Governing Mayor this week. He has been chosen for the post, as successor to Willy Brandt, now Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the new Bonn Government.

Mr. Albertz, whom the Nazis impressed into the army after his wartime imprisonment, gave up the ministry to aid refugees after the war. He was named as Mr. Brandt’s successor by the Socialist Party, which has an absolute majority in the City Assembly. He is to serve until March 12, when new city elections are to be held by the Assembly.

(Dr. Joachim Prinz, the American Jewish leader, arriving in London from a visit to West Germany, stated that all West German government leaders were taking seriously the neo-Nazi movement represented by the electoral gains of the extremist National Democratic party and that they regarded it with alarm. He said that former Chancellor Ludwig Erhard had told him “we have to watch developments very carefully because, in the event of an economic crisis in Germany, the outlook would be bad.”)

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